Maintaining healthy asset management systems is a must in medicine

The healthcare industry is changing rapidly. Today, more technologies than ever are going online, especially with new standards for electronic health records. The United States government has mandated the meaningful use of these information management systems by 2015, but what about fixed asset management? As medical professionals prepare to go paperless, they should also consider upgrading their inventory management system.

Strong solutions for practical practitioners

There are many benefits to implementing an advanced inventory management system in a medical setting. One of the most apparent may be that clinicians can save time by knowing the exact location of many materials. Healthcare professionals can use inventory tracking technologies to tag an array of items, including pill bottles, wheelchairs, defibrillators and patient monitoring cables. Saving time often correlates with saving lives in a medical setting, and inventory tracking can help with both.

By carefully tracking medications on the shelf, hospitals may also be able to cut costs. If it seems that some products linger longer, with a large amount of stock passing its expiration date, the organization can cut back on orders gradually to reduce waste. For the most commonly-used products, hospitals can better gauge demand and make sure that they are unlikely to run out at a critical moment.

Most importantly, inventory tracking not only allows for quicker care, but for better patient outcomes. A doctor can easily check hospital computers to determine whether medications have reached their expiration date, and even see how long the items have been on the shelf. With each bottle and case tracked in an automated system, it is simple for medical professionals to ensure that they have important treatment materials in stock, guaranteeing that patients won’t have to suffer due to accounting errors. For any hospital, patients’ are the top priority, and inventory tracking may result in happier, healthier ones.

Two of the more reliable solutions for hospitals looking to make changes to their inventory management system are radio frequency identification (RFID) and barcode asset tracking. Through these methods, professionals are able to keep accurate, to-the-minute records of just about every object in the healthcare system with the use of unique markers that allow the items to be located electronically. With an RFID or barcode system implemented, clinicians can easily check their computers for updates on a piece of equipment’s location or a drug’s expiration date, for example. This technology makes life much simpler for staff, as well as guarantees that patients are receiving the best care possible.